Kirkland Advises Firefly Aerospace on Historic $1 Billion IPO
Kirkland & Ellis advised AE Industrial Partners and its portfolio company Firefly Aerospace Inc. (Nasdaq:FLY), a market leading space and defense technology company and the only commercial company to achieve a fully successful moon landing, on its upsized initial public offering of 19.3 million shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $45.00 per share. In addition, the underwriters exercised their option to purchase an additional 2.9 million shares of common stock at the IPO price to close concurrently with the base deal closing. Firefly’s common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the trading symbol “FLY” on August 7, 2025, and surged 34% on its first day of trading.
Firefly is the largest Space & Defense Technology IPO ever and 10th largest industrials IPO ever.
The Kirkland team included capital markets lawyers Bob Hayward, Kevin Frank, Ashley Sinclair, Parker Davis, Drew Kohlmeier, Vivian Liu and Sara Shoemaker; corporate lawyers Matthew Arenson, Jeffrey Swatzell, Elena Simion, Neil Datar, Veronica Shen and Alanna Potter; executive compensation lawyers Michael Falk, Jake Ebers and Kelsie Harris; tax lawyers Rachel Cantor and Joe Morley; debt finance lawyers Michelle Kilkenney, Carolyn Aiken, Chris Gambini and Mitchell Steeves; and technology & IP transactions lawyers Aaron Lorber, Jeff Seroogy and Srinithi Narayanan.
